Cranes, Bats and In Betweens
by Witchit
Summary: An unconscious Crane is found on the streets of the Narrows during the riots, but when he begins to recover will his so called rescuer regret taking him in in the first place? Set as a general fic until I can work out where this is going!
1. Chapter 1

The night that The Narrows turned on themselves wasn't something easily forgettable, not by anyone standards, but particularly not for Hannah Abrams. She'd been feeling particularly ill for most of the day, so had kept herself to herself anyway. Nothing much, just a hangover, from the excesses of a previous nights wild activities. She was lucky she had. Outside, the screams of those who had been unfortunate enough to be caught in the chaos rang loudly, and further away she could hear gunshots. She shivered in fear, and held her bat closer to her, the only protection she had. She was sitting, in a corner in the dark, hoping nobody would get it into their heads to try to break into her apartment. She guessed she was fortunate enough that she loved off of the ground floor- at the very least, it wasn't an easy target.

At least, thats what she'd thought until she heard a huge crash from the floor below, as glass in the shopfront she lived above was shattered, and the shrill sounds of somone or something in distress could clearly be heard. She froze, mentally begging whatever deity might have existed that it was simply an accident, that whoever was down there wouldn't think to come upstairs. Seconds passed in what seemed a syrup like fashion, as seconds slowly turned to minutes. Ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty. Whatever chaos was going on down there began to move away, into another part of the Narrows.

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. She remained where she was for a few minutes, keeping her senses alert for any signs or sounds of trouble. When there were none, she picked herself and her bat up, and made her way to her apartment door, when she heard what sounded like a whinnying. Peering through the glass eye on her door, she ripped off the bottom of the shirt she was wearing over her vest, and tied it over her face, in an almost vain effort to prevent herself from breathing in the fog that had suddenly appeared when this all began. She'd been watching from her window when people on the streets had started screaming in fear, and fleeing in panic- she didn't want the same to happen to her. After sliding back the many bolts on her apartment door, she cautiously crept out.

The hallway was absolutely silent, and nothing could be heard or seen at all. Hannah continued on downstairs, and snuck onto the shop floor, being as careful as she could to avoid any would be looters that may still be near. There were none, but what was there, was the form of a police horse, on its side. From where she was, she could make out that the animal was clearly in some form of distress, and bitterly wished that there was something she could do to put it out of its misery. She wasn't particularly an animal lover, but there are some things you wouldn't wish on anything. She scanned around again, and her eyes fell on something else, laying close by the horse. She couldn't make out very much, but it was very obvious that it was a person, who'd been thrown clear. Leaving the bat at the bottom of the stairs, she moved quickly across the floor to ascertain whether or not the person was alive.

As she knelt down by the body,she could make out the rise and fall of their chest. That was a relief. There was something over their face (perhaps for a cruel hanging amidst the chaos? she wondered briefly, a crudley stitched burlap sack, and she tried to loosen it to allow for easier breathing, but then stopped herself, realising that whomever it was would end up breathing in the fog. She groaned as she realized that safest place for the person, now apparent to her as a man, was back upstairs in her apartment. Bracing herself, she sat him up, grabbed him under the arms, and rose awkwardly. Surprisingly, he wasn't particularly heavy, which would make things easier. Slowly, she began to drag him back towards the relative safety of the staircase, and the apartment above.

Hannah was almost to her door, she heard a sound come from underneath the mask. She stopped for a second and listened, as a voice, raspy and slurred, as if in a stupor, said "Scarecrow."

Curious for an instant, she tried to figure this out, before shrugging it off and finally reaching her door. She dragged the body over to her couch, and placed him on it. Then, after sliding all the locks back into place on her door, she went into her tiny kitchen, returning with a knife, to try and slice through the contraints that held the sack over his head in place. Pulling it off, she stared at it in confusion for a moment, as in the poor light afforded by the murky streetlamp outside, she could see that it was a crudely made mask. She threw it somewhere behind her, trying to ignore the twinge of nervousness it caused her, choosing to focus instead on the face now in front of her. It was at his point that the light outside finally failed, and she grumbled as she felt her way around for her lighter. Upon finding it she lit a candle (a leftover from a failed meal with a former boyfriend), and then turned again to focus on the mans face.

Though bruised, she could see make out defined features- long lashes on eyelids closed over his eyes, wavy hair that was an utter mess and pronounced cheekbones. He was in some kind of fevered state, which made her wonder just what the hell had happened to him. Untying her crude gas mask, she went into the bathroom, intending to run some cold water onto the rag, in an attempt to bring his temperature back down. She had to wait for a moment, as the taps and pipes behind them made some very odd groaning noises, before a small stream of cold water ran from the tap.

She placed the damp rag on his forehead, wiping away the sweat at first, before then leaving it there to cool his head down. Looking at her now very ragged shirt, she sighed and gave it up, realizing that she needed it for a more important reason. It had been one of her favourite shirts too. She went back into the bathroom with a bowl, to collect some water to clean the rest of him up with. There were glass fragments all around him when she'd found him, some with blood on them. She wasn't going to take the chance that there weren't any in him, and so she began loosening his jacket. When she finally succeeded in opening his shirt, she was relieved to find that there were only small scratches there. This guy had had a lucky break. She cleaned them up as best she could, and when she was done, she covered him with a blanket and sat on the floor beside the couch to wait out the rest of the night, and finally felt she could begin to relax.

She felt her eyes growing heavy just as the first rays of the morning finally began to hit.

The field was wide and light. And yet, it was still difficult to make much of anything out. There was movement at the edge of her vision, and she turned to see what appeared to be a group of small children approaching her. They regarded her curiously for an instant, before breaking into laughter. They were remarkably healthy looking, entirely like those children who were raised in the poorest areas of Gotham.

"Come and see him! Come and see him!" On particularly small and grubby looking boy chirped at her, before taking her hand and atempting to lead her into the unknown.

"Who?" And unusually, she wasn't surprised to hear the response.

"The King of The Pumpkin Patch!" The grubby little thing laughed again, and it was at this point that she noticed his hands. They were sticks and straw. Looking again, the child had suddenly grown, and she found herself looking into the face of something utterly undefinable. She was filled with an icy fear, and struggled to free herself its grip. The harder she struggled, the more frightened she became, which only seemed to please the creature. Evetually, she could take it no longer, and let herself be pulled down into the encroaching blackness, all the while aware of a strange, high scratchy laughter.

She was woken later by some form of movement nearby. Groggily sitting up, the first thing Hannah noticed was that it was early morning. The second, was that the man she'd dragged in last was attempting to sit up on the couch. There was a look of wild confusion on his face, as he tried to make sense of just where he was. He looked around the room, his eyes finally coming to rest on the person stood before him, who had somehow grabbed her bat and now regarded him warily.

"So glad you finally decided to join the land of the living", the woman he was now focussed on remarked. He frowned as he tried to remember just what had happened previously. The last thing he remembered was a large dark figure stood over him, and then from the depths of his mind a haunting laughter...

"I....uh...I'm sorry, but what?"

"You're damn lucky I found you. Everything went to Hell last night, and apparently you were lucky enough to have pissed somebody off. So just who are you?"

The man winced as he propped himself up, evidently still trying to sift through his memories. Eventually, after a long pause he replied, his voice calm, pleasant, but betraying no hint of emotion:

"Crane.....Dr. Jonathan Crane."


	2. Chapter 2

Crane watched as the information he had just given her was slowly absorbed, and noted with some amusement the growing shock on her face as she realized just Whom she had rescued during the night. To her credit, he was somewhat surprised she didn't back away as fast as she could, but he noted that her grip tightened on her bat somewhat.

With a dry tone to his voice, he said :"You realize of course, that if I was to attack you, nothing would protect you from me. So I really would put that bat down. Besides, in my current, somewhat incapacited state, I really have no desire to try anything, oh my saviour."

She scowled at him. How dare he threaten her in HER OWN APARTMENT?!

"Where the hell do you get off, threatening me in my own home?! I could have left you for dead out there, but nooooo, I risked my own ass to save your worthless one. Show a bit more damn gratitude."

This it seemed, only caused Crane to widen his smirk.

"So you're a bleeding heart are you? Saved all the little lost puppies and kittens when you were a little girl?"

Hannah howled in frustration.

"Don't you DARE try to psychoanalyze me! I meant what I said- I really could have left you for dead. Maybe I should just call the cops on you now huh? I'm just suuuure they'd come running." She drawled, and again tightened the grip on her bat, to the point that her knuckles turned white. He realized then that perhaps he had pushed a bit too far. He had seen far too many young nurses and doctors at the asylum miss signs like that and (just barely) live to regret it. Though she was not ( at least, he hoped she was not), mentally unsound as those others who exhibited them.

"I doubt that very highly. If you care to look outside, you can see that they are far too busy trying to catch more dangerous men then myself. Would you really stop them from doing so? Besides which, I'm in no hurry to go back to that...place. I've wasted enough years of my life there. I promise you, I'll be on my best behaviour." This seemed to have some effect- the scowl on Hannah's face loosened, and she began to calm down.

"You'd better be. I swear to God, you try anything while you're here, and I mean anything, I'll scream so loudly the cops'll have no choice but to come running." Her tone was still harsh, but lacking the steely edge it had had moments before. He raised his hands, wincing from the bruising along his limbs and torso as he did.

"You have my word. Now, you wouldn't happen to have anything to drink, would you? I inhaled something last night that appears to have left me rather dry."

Hannah turned and disappeared into the kitchen mumbling to herself at this, presumably to try and find something to drink. Crane took the opportunity to rack his brains and to try and work out just why he wasn't as howlingly mad as the rest of those....creatures, for lack of a better word. He surmised that during the early trials of the fear toxin, wherein they'd initially tested the potency of the flower itself, he must have picked up some kind of immunity to long term effcts. Either that, or that Dawes bitch had somehow cleared his system with that wretched taser of hers. He was interrupted from his train of thought by the returning Hannah, who had in her hand a carton of milk.

"Here. This is all that was left in the refridgerator- everything else seems to have turned into some kind of powdery gunk." She handed him the carton and then plopped herself down on the floor, propping her hand up by balancing it on her baseball bat. She watched him as he drank deep from the carton, taking huge gulps whilst a couple of small trails of milk ran down his neck. He wiped his lips and neck delicately with the corner of the blanket he was still sat underneath, before meeting Hannah's eyes with a level and analytical gaze. She found herself starting into his eyes for a fraction of a second too long, before shaking her head vigorously.

"So tell me, just what happened out there last night, and how did you manage to avoid inhaling any of the toxin, Miss...?" He trailed off expectantly.

"Abrams. My friends call me Hannah, but in no way can you. I really don't know what the hell happened last night- everything was pretty calm and then all of a sudden, whoosh! There's rumbling, exploding pipes, and fog everywhere. I guess I was lucky- the pipes in this place are so damn old that they'd closed off or rusted up." She shuddered as she recalled the screaming and the madness she'd heard afterwards. It wasn't exactly something she was in a hurry to remember. At this remark, he frowned. He hadn't expected that. Ra's al Ghul had never stated his intentions, but then, Crane had never truly enquired. He had been happy enough taking the money being offered and funneling it into his experiments. Even so, he had thought that they would try to extract something from the situation. Chaos for chaos' sake was so....unsightly. It wasn;t something he ever wished to face again. He had recollections of what, at first what he'd thought, or perhaps hoped were dreams (rather, nightmares), but were inevitable flashes of the true madness he'd briefly encountered in his mind after the Batman had left his mark. It was ironic and yet somehow fitting that his own toxin, his pride and joy, the thing he had thrown almost everything away for had been the thing to bring him finally to a breaking point. He recalled colours, more intense and vivid then any he had ever seen. A memory of what was almost a blood rush in his mind, as thoughts, feelings and sensations all crashed together, roiling and heaving against the walls of his mind like a turbulentand chaotic oceanic thunderstorm. Perhaps what disturbed him most was how, despite the sobbing laughter and oh so tangible fear that madness has wrought on him had left him a shell of what he was, he'd still enjoyed it...and then he saw briefly the face of Dawes, felt a surge through his body and mind, and remembered the comforting blackness that followed.

Hannah still had her eyes on him whilst he was considering all of this, watching as his eyes first showed surprise, then anger, and then mild disgust. He must have noticed this, because in the next moment, his eyes suddenly became cold and indifferent again.

"Yes, Miss Abrams? He stated this, rather then asking. She felt her cheeks turning red at being caught starting like some adolescent girl.

"I uhhhh....nothing. You looked a little bewildered there for a couple of seconds", she said quickly, trying to hide her embarrassment.

"Well, I imagine you would be too, if you woke up in a place you'd never seen before." Crane snapped. Her staring was beginning to wear on him.

"Well excuse me. I'll just stare at a wall shall I?" She snapped back, and for some inexplicable reason, she saw him begin to smile.

For whatever reason, he found that pushing her buttons was extremely entertaining. It was at least, something for him to do until he was well enough to sneak away. Sooner rather then later, he hoped. In the meantime, there was very little to do. He sighed.

"I don't suppose you have anything that I can read whilst I'm stuck here, do you? As...entertaining as it is, I can't simply go on having these petty arguements with you. It just isn't good for the blood pressure you know."

Hannah laughed.

"Yeah, its all on the shelves above you. You'll excuse me if its not to your taste, but then, that doesn't really matter, now does it?"

Crane turned and looked at the shelves above his head, and noticed amongst other things, well thumbed copies of The Count Of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, a collection of stories by Poe and several books of poetry. He raised his brows slightly.

"Classical literature? You surprise me Miss Abrams."

"Huh? Oh right. I get it. I live in the Narrows, so I must be really thick, right?" She took care to emphasize the last words, deliberately lacing them with a sarcastic oafish tone. Crane laughed, a not entirely unpleasant sound- it was low, contained, and somewhat earthy. He supposed that perhaps there were worse places to be. After all, it wasn't like he could move very far in his current state. He had tried, just before she had woken up, and almost fallen face first onto the floor. He had to at least remain for a few days, until the chaos and assumed police presence died down.

"Now, now, I never said that. This is going to be...an amusing few days." His face had regained that superior smirk. Hannah snorted.

"Speak for yourself." And with that, she picked herself up again, and stomped back into the kitchen, attempting to forget the altogether far too smug (and yet somehow bizzarely fascinating) man who would, regrettably, be taking up residence on her couch for the next few days. She groaned internally at the thought. And then stubbed her toe on the corner of her kitchen table. She howled once more, and shot death glares at the table, almost willing it to catch fire under her gaze.

It never rains, but always pours, she thought bitterly.


End file.
